Animal Thoughts
by Kimmy Jarl
Summary: Sherlock Holmes was not an animal


People were all the same. Soft or hard, villain or victim, all the same. They were animals, living with animals, their heads filled with animal thoughts.

Animals crept together for warmth and for comfort. Dogs liked to lick and to nuzzle. Children were monkeys, clinging to their parents with the force of instinct and inclination of nature.

Sherlock Holmes was not an animal. If he could he would be just a brain, leaving his body behind. Discard it, like so much waste.

Meals were a nuisance, sleep a bother.

And he did not miss his friend.

.

(church bells ringing, ringing, flowers, green, sun in the trees. laughter and smiling and clinging hands. flowers, ribbons, laced glove. and there, the concept of forever, of eternal world)

"Holmes!" A hand on his arm, shaking him awake.

(but he hadn't been sleeping)

It was Watson, his distress easy to discern. Holmes sat in his armchair. He rolled down his shirtsleeve. No reason to hurry.

"Good morning, doctor. Married life agrees with you, I see."

Four months since the doctor had been here last.

"It's noon." Watson shook his head, but now he was smiling. An argument about meaningless things. It always did restore normalcy.

"How…" The doctor stopped himself. He wasn't going to ask him how he had been. There was a bottle with a medical label on the table. Wasn't going to ask about that.

"I read about your latest case."

In the papers, the events distorted beyond recognition. Time was, Watson would have read it and thrown the paper down on the table in disgust – talking, walking, his hands waving in the air. A flurry of indignation.

"A trifling thing."

"You always say."

Only when it was true.

.

His thoughts kept returning to the hand of Watson's wife, how it had rested on Watson's arm when they had married. White lace, her glove on his sleeve. His brain only did that with puzzles, turned them over and over until they made sense. What was the puzzle about the glove?

And then there was Irene Adler, that women. He had stood by there too. A witness. Observed the vows, the promises. The hand on the arm. It tugged at him somehow.

(maybe he could make a diagram)

He was sick and he didn't know of what.

"Holmes! You must eat."

"I did eat."

"When?"

A hand on his pulse. Four fingers, a steady pressure. They seemed to hold on longer than necessary.

.

"How goes life with your young wife?"

The doctor gave him an odd look. Surprised.

"Life goes fine. Thanks for asking."

A tiny smile spoke volumes. More than fine then.

.

Stupidly, he wanted to get away. Leave everything

(himself)

and start over. Not as somebody else, but a different self.

(the animal that was him)

.

Another case, another notice in the papers. It made him think about death. About what would be left when he was gone. He remembered four fingers on his pulse, lingering, a ghost touch. He lifted his hand and kissed the inside of his own wrist. He didn't know why.

.

Next case was one of those. The unsolvable ones. Too common, too casual the ease of violence. Anyone could have done the deed. It made him want to lash out, it made him want to spew bitterness and boredom and turn his back to the hopelessness of it all. Watson could tell. The doctor didn't want to leave him that night, leave him alone. He put his hand on Sherlock's shoulder, warm and firm and intimate. Offering comfort, pulling him into a hug almost, which they had never used to do. And for a minute it was good, the arm on his back. It was helpful and novel and curious and then it became a ribbon, pushing down on his chest. He couldn't get enough breath. It was intolerable limiting. The limits of flesh, the trap that was his body.

He pushed the doctor away, far more firmly than was needed. A rebuke. And accordingly the doctor was shame-faced, his eyes averted. Knew he had gone too far, that an arm on the back was too far. And he said his farewells and that was that and Sherlock knew the doctor would never try that kind of doctoring again, whatever possessed him to try it in the first place.

.

Holmes sat in his armchair, thinking. Thinking that the digits of his hand were truly remarkable. The way they worked, obeyed his every command. The nails, the joints, the flexibility. The veins underneath the skin. Rats. Rats had hands too. Small, fragile little rat-paws that could grasp and climb and flex.

At Barts he had seen corpses dissected. When he had been seven he had used to comb his mother's hair. Restlessness made him reach for a bottle with a medical label. Every policeman in London envied his brain. Given enough time he would solve the mystery of himself.


End file.
